THE PROVING OF THE BRAKE

On Monday morning Philip rose early. He had a hard week before him, for besides performing his usual duties—and their name was legion at this busy season of the year—he hoped to devote an afternoon to an exhaustive trial of the Meldrum Automatic Electro-Magnetic (described by the ribald Timothy as the Ought-to-Scrap-It, Don't You-Forget-It) Brake. He was anxious, later in the week, to run down to Coventry and persuade the conservative Bilston to extend official recognition to his offspring.

He devoted two hours before breakfast to the more tender adjustment of the mechanism of the brake, which he had attached to the service-car provided for his use by the Company. The car consisted mainly of a long, lean, powerful chassis, destitute of ornament and fitted with a skimpy and attenuated body of home manufacture. He was assisted in his operations by Mr. Brand, once more unclothed and in his right mind. Brand had taken a reluctant but irresistible interest in the evolution of the Brake. Indeed, one or two practical suggestions of his had been incorporated in the final design.

At last the work was completed. Philip climbed out of the pit and disconnected the inspection lamp.

"That's great, Brand," he said. "Thank you for all your help. If the Company takes the invention up I hope you will accept five per cent of the first year's royalties as your just commission."

It was an unnecessarily handsome offer, but Mr. Brand was not particularly cordial in his thanks. He would have preferred, on the whole, to receive nothing whatever for his assistance, and so be able to announce that Labour (himself) had done the work, while Capital (Philip) drew the profits.

Early in the afternoon, after a crowded morning in the office, Philip ordered round the service-car and set off upon his trial trip. First of all he tested his Brake in the surging torrent of Oxford Street. In this enterprise he received invaluable assistance from that strange animal, the pedestrian, and wondered for the hundredth time, as he eluded a panic-stricken party of shoppers who had darted out of Marshall and Snelgrove's apparently for the express purpose of getting run over, why it is that the ordinary citizen—even the self-confident Cockney—who desires to cross a crowded street should invariably put his head well down and run rather than keep it well up and walk. However, he was gratified to find that the Brake performed its duties without undue suddenness and held the car without apparent effort.

At the Marble Arch he turned into the Park, and gliding sedately past the long rows of green chairs, emerged at Albert Gate and sped down the Fulham Road. Presently he was across Putney Bridge. Twenty minutes later he cleared Kingston, and leaving Suburbia, with its tramlines and other impedimenta, far behind him, headed joyously for the Surrey hills.

It was a perfect afternoon in June, and Philip, who for some reason was in a reminiscent mood, wandered back in his thoughts to his first motor ride—that ecstatic and epoch-making journey in Mr. Mablethorpe's fiery chariot, Boanerges of blessed memory.

Boanerges, alas, was no more. A fighter to the last, he had met his Waterloo more than two years ago in a one-sided but heroic combat with a Pantechnicon furniture-van. Always a strategist, Boanerges had taken the van in the rear, charging through its closed doors with devastating effect and recoiling into the roadway after the impact, with the first fruits of victory, in the shape of a wash-hand stand, adhering firmly to his crumpled radiator. But his triumph was momentary. The radiator stood gaping open; the cooling waters imprisoned therein gushed forth; the temperature of Boanerges rose to fever-heat; and as the faithful engine refused under any conditions to stop running, the whole sizzling fabric rapidly heated itself to redness and finally burst into flame, furnishing the inhabitants of Maida Vale with the finest and most pestiferous bonfire ever seen in Watling Street. So perished Boanerges, and the wash-hand stand with him. Pax cineribus.

Roaming further down the avenues of remembrance, Philip came next to the affaire Pegs, and the house on Hampstead Heath. Performing a brief sum in mental arithmetic, he calculated that Pegs would now be about twenty-two. Perhaps she was married by this time. Indeed, it was highly probable, for Montagu Falconer was not precisely the sort of person with whom one would choose to dwell longer than was absolutely necessary. Still, it was odd to think of such a little girl being married. He recalled some of their quaint childish conversations, and was conscious of a sudden desiderium—there is no exact word for it in English—for the days that were no more. It would be pleasant, he reflected, to have some one beside him now—especially some one with kind brown eyes and wavy hair—to cheer him with her presence and act as a repository for his private thoughts and ambitions. However, his own proper Lady would come along some day. Would she be like Pegs, he wondered?

He touched the accelerator with his foot, and the car began to breast the three-mile slope of Wickmore Hill. It was on the farther side that he proposed to test his Brake.

Meanwhile, along a road running almost parallel with Philip's and ultimately converging on Wickmore Hill itself, came another car. It was a Britannia, of a four-year-old pattern. It was driven by a gentleman with a yellow beard, into which streaks of grey had made their way. Beside him sat a girl. The gentleman, her father, had just completed a sulphurous summary of the character of the man who had designed the carburettor of the car—not because of any inherent defect in the carburettor itself, but because the gentleman, for a variety of reasons, the most cogent of which was an entire ignorance of the elements of motor mechanics, had twice stopped his engine in the course of five miles.

Presently they emerged from the side road on to the summit of Wickmore Hill. The gentleman stopped the car by a fierce application of the brakes.

"I shall write to the band of brigands who sold me this condemned tumbril," he announced, "and ask for my money back."

"Considering that we have had the car for nearly four years now," remarked his daughter calmly, "won't they think we have been rather a long time making up our minds about it?"

"Don't be ridiculous! How could I detect the fault when I had never driven the car myself until to-day?" snapped the car's owner.

"I should think," said the girl, "that if there had been a fault Adams would have noticed it."

This apparently harmless observation roused quite a tempest.

"Adams? That numskull! That bumpkin! Haven't I been compelled to dismiss Adams from my service for gross incompetence only yesterday? How would he be likely to notice faults in a car?"

"I don't know, I'm sure," was the unruffled reply, "except that he was a trained mechanic and a good driver."

At this moment a Gabriel horn fluted melodiously in the distance. Philip was coming up behind them, climbing the hill at thirty miles an hour. Seeing a car in front of him at a standstill, he slowed down punctiliously and glanced in an enquiring fashion at its occupants as he slid past.

"Filthy road-hog!" bellowed the gentleman at the wheel; and Philip went on his way.

The gentleman turned to his daughter.

"Now, let's have no more nonsense about Adams," he said. "I admit he had a wife and four children, but you can hardly hold me responsible for that. Moreover, he was a yahoo. He decorated the interior of the garage—my garage—with chromolithographs, and his wife kept wax fruit under a glass case in her parlour window. I have dismissed him, and there is an end of it. Let us cease to be sentimental or maudlin upon the subject."

"You might have given him a character," said the girl.

"If I had," replied her father grimly, "he would never have obtained a situation again."

The girl changed the subject.

"Don't you think," she said, "that if we are really going to call on the Easts, we had better be getting on? And go gently. The foot-brake is a good deal worn, and the side-brake won't hold this heavy car if it gets on the run down this hill."

"If there is one thing," replied her amiable papa, "about this miserable and untrustworthy vehicle which can be relied upon at all, it is the efficiency of the brakes."

They set off with a jerk.

Meanwhile Philip, a little startled at the reception accorded to his tacit offer of assistance, was running down Wickmore Hill. It was a long descent—nearly three miles—but was not steep, and there were no sharp curves until near the bottom. It was a useful spot for brake-tests.

"I wonder who that old ass was," mused Philip. "Rum bird. One of our cars, too. There was something familiar about his voice. Road-hog, indeed!" Philip grunted indignantly, for he was a virtuous motorist. "Now I will really hog it a bit: this is a lovely piece of road. I'll let the old car rip for a couple of hundred yards and then see what the Ought-to-Scrap-It will do. There was a girl with him, too. I wonder what her face was like, behind that thick blue veil. Now, then, old friend, put your back into it!" He patted the steering-wheel affectionately. "Off you go!... No, steady! Wait a minute."

He closed down the throttle, for another car was coming down the hill behind him, and he intended to let it pass in order to have a clear road for his own operations. He looked round.

"What in thunder—" he began.

All was not well with the oncoming car. The horn was being blown unceasingly, and some one appeared to be shouting. As Philip looked, he saw that it was the Britannia car which he had passed at the top of the hill. It was going thirty miles an hour and swaying a little from side to side. Next moment it was past him.

The gentleman at the wheel turned to Philip as they shot by.

"We are running away, damn you!" he bawled.

It was what geometricians call a self-evident proposition, though why Philip should be damned because an incompetent stranger had allowed his car to get out of control was not readily apparent. Still, there was no time to sift the matter. Something must be done—promptly—or there would be a hideous disaster. Besides, the man at the wheel was no stranger. Philip recognized him now.

Philip's foot came down upon the accelerator, and the long low car leaped down the hill. Philip's mind was suddenly and tensely clear. There was only one thing to do, and the Meldrum Ought-to-Scrap-It, Don't-You-Forget-It Brake would have to do it. Otherwise—!

"Lucky there's no sharp turn for nearly two miles," he muttered to himself between his locked teeth. "Pray God we meet nothing coming up the other way! Now to get past! My word, they are swinging!"

Next moment he was abreast of the flying car.

"Get right behind me, if you can," he shouted, "and I'll try to stop you."

The only response to this appeal was another swerve on the part of the runaway, in avoiding which Philip nearly cannoned into a tree at the side of the road. The gentleman with the beard appeared to have lost his head altogether. His efforts to avoid disaster were now limited to swearing volubly and blowing his horn. Philip noted that the side-brake was full on; but it seemed to have little effect in checking the car.

"Stick to your wheel, you fool!" he shouted with the full strength of his lungs.

The gentleman responded with a fresh outburst of vocal and instrumental exuberance. But suddenly, just as Philip shot ahead, the girl in the blue veil leaned over and gripped the wheel in her two hands. Her parent immediately relinquished his hold altogether, and devoted his undivided attention to the horn.

Then followed the fullest and most eventful minute of Philip's life.

He was ahead now—going perhaps fifty miles an hour, but clear in front of the other car. He knew he must act at once, for there was barely half a mile of straight road left, and there were two sharp turns at the foot of the hill. What he had to do must be done instantaneously, and called for superb driving. He wondered if the girl behind could hold on long enough to give him a chance. To steer a car steadily from any position except the driver's seat is a difficult enough performance, but to accomplish it when the seat is occupied by a gesticulating lunatic is almost a physical impossibility. Still, Philip had had time to note the prompt and decisive way in which this girl had grasped his purpose and carried out his instructions. He felt somehow that those small gloved hands could be trusted to cling gamely on until the end of all things.

Glancing back, he saw that the other car was now right behind him—seven yards or so. The moment had come—the inventor's moment.

"I told Timothy it would stop a motor-bus," he observed to himself. "We'll see if it will stop two cars!"

The Brake was controlled by a switch upon the steering-pillar. The farther the switch was pulled over the stronger became the current which supplied the Brake's magnetic force. But it was not required yet. Philip hastily jammed on the side-brake, which, though it could not check, sensibly moderated the headlong speed of his car; and then, getting both hands back to the steering-wheel, braced himself, and leaning well back, waited for the impact of the runaway.

It came, but not too severely. By good luck or good management the pursuing car struck Philip's fairly and squarely in the back, and the two raced on together down the hill, locked together like engine and tender, the sorely handicapped little chauffeuse behind exerting all her small strength to keep her leading wheels from slewing round. The shock of collision, coming where it did, sent a thrill of satisfaction coursing up Philip's spine.

"Oh, well done, well done, little girl, whoever you are!" he murmured enthusiastically. "That gives us a Chinaman's chance, anyhow. Now!"

He pulled the switch of the Brake slowly over, three parts of the way.

For a moment nothing seemed to happen; and then—oh, rapture—the rocking cars began to slow down. The Brake was answering to the call. The strain was immense, but the work was good. On they tore, but more slowly and yet more slowly. They were barely going twenty-five miles an hour now.

Philip leaned hard back, gripping the wheel, and exulted. They were going to stop. The Brake was proved. Suddenly his eye caught a glimpse of a red triangle. They were coming to the turns—sooner than he expected, for the pace had been terrific, and the whole incident had barely lasted a hundred seconds as yet.

Well, they would just manage it, he calculated, provided that the smoking brake-shoes held out. They were running at a comparatively moderate pace by this time. A single car could have taken the approaching corner comfortably. The danger lay in the likelihood that the car behind would skid. Still, the little girl was steering like a Trojan. They ought to get off with a shaking at the worst.

Round to the left they swung. Philip, glancing over his shoulder, could see the girl behind frantically wrestling with her steering-wheel. Next moment they were round. She had succeeded. The road was almost level now, but the second corner was imminent, and in the reverse direction, for this was what was technically known as an "S" turn.

Philip pulled his brake-switch into the very last notch and put his wheel hard over to the right.

What happened next he never rightly knew. His car took the corner well enough. But then, instead of proceeding upon its appointed way, it continued to come round, and still farther round, in a giddy, sickening circle, until it threatened to mount the bank beside the road. Philip promptly spun his wheel over to the left, but all in vain. Next moment his car was right across the road; for the car behind, instead of following its leader round the bend, had pursued a straight course, pushing the tail of Philip's long chassis before it. Philip could feel his back-tyres sliding sideways over the smooth asphalt. He felt utterly helpless. The Brake could do no more. It was not designed to prevent cars from running away laterally.

Suddenly there came a loud report. "Back tyre!" muttered Philip mechanically—and the car gave a sudden lurch to the left. Then, without warning, it turned completely upside down. The other car, like a victor who sets his foot upon the neck of the vanquished, mounted proudly on the wreck of its prostrate preserver, and there poised itself—stationary at last.

Philip, unable to free himself, went over with his car. "I rather fancy the old man must have been putting his oar in again," he said to himself, as the road rose suddenly up to meet him.

So the Meldrum Automatic Electro-Magnetic Brake was proved. When they examined the car afterwards it was found that though the brake-shoes were scorched and damaged beyond recall, the Brake itself was in perfect order.

The other car was hardly injured. Its occupants were unhurt.

But Philip did not know this. He had ceased to take any active interest in the proceedings.

Only for one brief moment during the subsequent twenty-four hours did he exhibit any sign of intelligence at all. This was when he woke up on his way back to London. He found himself lying in a smooth-running vehicle of some kind. The light was uncertain, and his vision was somewhat obscured by bandages; but he was dimly conscious that some one was sitting beside him—close beside him.

He made an inarticulate sound. Instantly the figure stirred and a face came very close to his.

Philip surveyed the face gravely, and remarked:—

"Hallo, Pegs!"

Then everything became blank again.

BOOK THREE

OMNIA VINCIT!